I am CEO of CollegeSpring, a nonprofit I co-founded in 2008 as a sophomore at Stanford University. After launching CollegeSpring during the heart of the recession, I have grown CollegeSpring into California's largest nonprofit provider of SAT and college readiness programs for students from low-income backgrounds. Students from low-income backgrounds score more than 200 points lower on the SAT than their peers, and CollegeSpring exists to close that gap. Since 2008, we have helped more than 5,000 high school students from low-income backgrounds achieve the SAT scores, college acceptances, and futures they deserve.

The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

New SAT Creates More Equitable Path To College

This weekend, thousands of students around the country took an SAT dramatically different from the exam students will take two years from now. The test changes announced by The College Board in March, coupled with a renewed institutional commitment to equal opportunity, offer positive philosophical and practical steps towards creating a more equitable path to college for students from low-income backgrounds, but we still have a long way to go.

To understand the future of the SAT, we should first remember its past. Before the SAT, selective colleges and universities relied heavily on the reputations of elite private secondary schools for their admissions decisions and rarely accepted students who attended public schools. When the SAT was first introduced, it helped level the playing field by offering public school students—who were often from lower-income, immigrant and ethnically diverse families—the opportunity to demonstrate that they were just as capable as their preparatory school peers. The results were dramatic: for example, in 1965 when Yale made the SAT more central to their admissions strategy, acceptances from public schools increased by 9% in the first year alone.

Over time, as well-off families started to realize that the SAT was a crucial lever for influencing their children’s admissions odds and the SAT preparation industry emerged, the SAT’s early value as a potential equalizer eroded. Those who could afford expensive test preparation were able to gain an additional leg up.

In redesigning the SAT, College Board President David Coleman is leading a revitalized effort to democratize college opportunity by creating a test that is pragmatic and built with academic excellence and equity in mind. Unlike its predecessor, which is known for complexity and even trickiness, the new test will be more straightforward, which will help ensure that those who lack preparation resources will face fewer disadvantages.

For example, the guessing penalty—long a source of confusion and anxiety, especially for those who walk into the SAT cold without preparation—will be removed in the new SAT. In addition, obscure vocabulary words, which are more likely to reward memorization than a history of reading, will also be removed. While some people are concerned that a more content-driven, straightforward exam will “dumb down” the test, this could not be further than the truth: the exam will still be scored on a bell curve; the only difference is that student achievement will be differentiated more meaningfully.

The College Board has also taken an important step toward equity by partnering with the Khan Academy to make no-cost SAT preparation resources available online—a historical step in part because it is the first time that The College Board has truly embraced that preparation for the SAT is critical. On the same note, The College Board also provides in-kind resources such as study books for organizations like mine that prepare students from low-income backgrounds for the SAT.

Students work with undergraduate mentors to study for the SAT in CollegeSpring’s free SAT program. (Photo credit: CollegeSpring and Maya Myers Photography)

While The College Board and Khan Academy are taking positive steps towards realizing the SAT’s original goal of promoting equity in access to higher education, they cannot achieve this goal alone. Few low-income students access online educational resources unless they are steered to them—and often guided through them—by trusted teachers, counselors, and mentors. Consequently, to realize the full value of the Khan Academy partnership, it must be accompanied by the personal support and encouragement of trusted adults who can help students understand why college and the SAT are important.

We must also recognize that academic rigor is still missing in many of our low-performing schools, and that the demographic divide in SAT performance is foremost an academic achievement gap. While a more equitable exam has the potential to close a portion of this gap, students will only succeed on the new SAT if they strengthen core skills such as algebra, analysis, and editing. Outside interventions that support academic readiness are important, but we must also change the system itself by holding principals and school systems accountable to college-readiness metrics such as PSAT and SAT scores.

Now that The College Board has created new momentum, we must all work together to ensure that all students—especially those from low-income backgrounds—have the academic preparation, knowledge, and encouragement to earn a college-ready SAT score and the benefits that come with it.

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